February 18, 2019

ATHENS (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Chloe Kritharas Devienne was asked to photograph 28 couples kissing and cuddling in Greece while holding a bar of Lacta chocolate, she did not expect to be attacked by trolls.

The Valentine’s Day adverts for the popular chocolate brand were the first to feature same-sex and interracial couples in Greece, a conservative country where the Orthodox Church holds sway and same-sex couples cannot marry or adopt children.

“People were tweeting pictures of my face, saying, ‘This is the photographer who did this’,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that critics also posted links to her work documenting refugees to portray her as excessively liberal.

“Personally I love both men and women. I thought that nothing would make me happier than to have these pictures all over Athens so that all these homophobic people are forced to look at them ... It’s been the number one subject in Greece.”

A growing number of businesses around the world are including same-sex couples in their marketing strategies in a bid to reflect social diversity and to capture the lucrative LGBT+ market.

Homophobic attacks by far-right gangs are not uncommon in Greece, where civil partnerships were legalized in 2015 amid protests from the Communist party, right-wingers and the church.

Kritharas Devienne saw working for Lacta - made by the world’s No. 2 confectioner Mondelez International - as a chance to change minds in the Mediterranean country where depictions of same-sex love are still taboo.

“In Greece people are very, very homophobic,” she said. “The church has made it very clear it considers homosexuality a sin.”

A Greek orthodox bishop who urged his followed to “spit on” gay people was imprisoned in January for inciting violence after an earlier trial found him not guilty, local media reported.

While Lacta urged Facebook users to “embrace all tastes of love”, the hundreds of comments it received included, “You must be ashamed of yourself” and “Little children will see this! What standards will you pass to them I would like to know”.

SURPRISE

Even in Finland, which has some of the world’s most progressive LGBT+ laws, the use of an image of a lesbian couple to promote Kulta Katriina coffee on Facebook sparked hateful comments from about 3 percent of users.

“We wanted a Valentine’s image that would symbolize both love and friendship, and also equality,” said Heidi Paivaniemi, marketing manager of the Finnish company, which promotes itself as an ethical brand.

But one post said, “Strange that you would need to advertise coffee through homosexuals. I will stop using your brand”. Another said they now feared that Kulta Katriina was poisonous.

“It was a surprise for us, because this type of campaign is really not something new in Finland,” said Paivaniemi.

In India, where gay sex was legalized in September, a Valentine’s Day video ad on Facebook for chocolate by Big Basket, the country’s biggest online supermarket, showed a young lesbian couple kissing and holding hands.

“The reactions have been pretty overwhelming, and people were pleased that I was playing something different,” said Shatabdi Chakraborty, who played one of the lovers.

But she does not believe adverts alone can change mindsets as they rarely reach rural areas where LGBT+ people can face violence from their own families, including corrective rape to ‘cure’ gay women.

“We have adverts telling us why we shouldn’t use plastic or cut down trees, but people still do these things,” she said.

This year’s LGBT+ Valentine’s adverts are mostly digital, rather than outdoors or on TV - the most expensive formats with the biggest reach.

In Greece, Lacta did not use Kritharas Devienne’s images in its outdoor billboards, which only show straight couples.

“I know it has been all over the internet, but not everyone will have the internet,” she said with disappointment.

February 18, 2018

At the height of the 2016 American presidential campaign, Russian propagandists used Twitter accounts to spread conspiracy theories, misinformation, and political division. That and other shady online activity led Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating foreign interference in the election, to indict 13 Russian nationals.

This transition in tone from vapid to vociferously political is common across the universe of Russian troll tweets, according to our survey of 200,000 tweets released this week by NBC. The banal early tweets could be part of an effort to make the accounts seem like they belong to real people.

A good example is the Twitter user “evagreen69,” now known to be part of the network of Russian accounts. In July 2014, it tweeted, “I am in Love with LOVE!” A few months later, the user announced, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!”—chapter 55, verse 6 of the Book of Psalms. The next month there was a quote from the Stoic philosopher Seneca: “The most onerous slavery is to be a slave to oneself.” In the same month it tweeted, “What I tend to do when it comes to you,” a line from a song by Shakira (feat. Rihanna).

None of the quotes were attributed.

Then, in 2015, evagreen69 started to get political. “It’s not a secret that Obama grew up in a Muslim family,” it claimed in February of that year. In March, “All of those protesters in Ferguson, your hand [sic] are covered with blood!” Later in the year, “#GOPDebate Together we can make America great again.” Much later, in August 2016: “Please sign and share my petition #WakeUpAmerica #NeverHillary #ImNotWithHer.” That one was retweeted over 800 times.

“Eva Green’s” initial penchant for song lyrics, scripture, and inspirational quotes is shared across the troll network.

In 2014, the user “heyits_toby” had a Benjamin Franklin quote, a line from a song by the Finnish rock band Rasmus, and an English translation of a Russian proverb. The account “patriotraphael,” delivered yet another Seneca quote, yet another Russian proverb, and this line from the rap-rock band Hollywood Undead: “I got the speakers pumpin’ straight bangin’ the thong song #RAPCORE.”

Let’s look at another example. Why not. Twitter user “judelambertusa” had these three quotes:

“A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” —Ruth Bell Graham

“Know that I don’t make music for niggas who don’t get pussy so those are the ones I count on to diss me or overlook me.” —Drake (this one was attributed)

There is much more like this.

From the 200,000 tweets collected by NBC, the pattern looks like this: A new troll account is set up. It populates its feed with non-political tweets, presumably drawing from databases of quotes, song lyrics, platitudes, and, it seems, Russian proverbs. Then the account gets going with political messages. Those messages lean pro-Trump, but they can go the other way, too.

The goal here seems to be to make the accounts look like those of regular Americans. If they only tweeted controversial political messages, it would be more obvious that they were not genuine. That’s also probably why they have names like “patriotraphael” and “judelambertusa.” In his indictment, Mueller accused the Russian propagandists of impersonating Americans on social media.

The Russian trolls seem to have a sense of humor. There is some irony in turning a Benjamin Franklin quote into a weapon aimed at the United States. But Lil’ Wayne (yes, he’s in there) just seems sloppy. Perhaps they were taking the advice of Steven Tyler, via the troll user “micparrish”: “If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing.”

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